Of Crimson Indigo: Points of Origin

by Grant Fausey

  The young warrior traced the subtle nuances of her previous encounters; studied the layout with a cautious eye. The complex resembled a squatting man with outstretched arms. The derrick’s rotator cuffs and drilling bits rose to the heavens on a giant pillar of components that converged at the core of a massive pylon platform, each component separated by an outrigger arrangement of composite drilling and excavation equipment meant for burrowing deep into the planet subsurface. Everything looked the same, nothing out of place. Only the phantom woman stood out.

  The young warrior tweaked her heads-up display, alerted to a flash of electronic data that streamed across her visor in rapid sequences above her eyes. The old woman’s presence was not an apparition, but rather a chill in the air that coursed through her with the wind. She slipped lower into the atmosphere feeling the eerie sensation, as if stepping over her own grave. The experience was quite unsettling. The ground beneath her feet was jagged. Shards of broken rock encircled what appeared to be some sort of underground laboratory facility. Another structure she hadn’t seen before now had her attention. The ground was littered with the remains of a boomtown she didn’t quite remember.

  Krydal responded, but not graciously. Her curiosity had the best of her. But the notion was ridiculous. No one would believe her. The thought was absurd, but there she was, an old woman standing alone on the platform. A phantom of some kind, a useless echo, or holographic apparition counted as a trespasser. There was obviously something malfunctioning in her armor’s electronic gear. She had no choice but to readjust the settings. The old woman did the same, mimicking her from the other side of the boundary, drawing her attention.

  No … thought the young warrior. She can’t really exist.

  The ghostly woman was standing opposite her, immersed in the radiance of the temporal convergence like a hologram outline, barely visible in the corner of her eye. The doppelganger shunned the apparition, settling instead on the schematic of the complex. Her heads-up display identified the old woman as an anomaly. Everything except the new acquisition highlighted above her eyes on the schematic. The surrounding terrain, however, from the railway spar leading the platform to the central operations dome registered as non-combatant. The tower was devoid of life, clear of movement. There were no other intruders visible, only the old woman along the edge of the lower derrick platform stood out.

  The corporate liaison followed the rail line from the temporal zone to the edge of the upper deck, staying just above the main concourse platform. The drilling rig was like a giant airport, filled with loading docks and landing platforms. The closest support was a comfortable aim, but the prospect of making a perfect landing was negligible: Too much turbulence. A caldron of funnel clouds skirted the structure. There was every chance of getting hit by plasma-induced lightning, before hitting the ground. The odds of escaping injury except by direct lightning strike was favorable. A direct hit would be catastrophic. The Firehawk used highly charged neuron particles to maintain the integrity of the matter stream teleporting transmitted information. The young warrior and her companions were nothing short of reassembled data, reintegrated in the sparkling rays of the transporter’s artificial light once their feet hit the ground.

  Krydal wondered whether or not, she ever really left the ship. The experience certainly felt real, but gave the impression of being nothing more than a memory. She considered the possibility of Sodin being nothing more than a figment of her imagination: An implanted memory designed to cover the real destination’s appearance. Even give something without form substance. After all, she was in the middle of the Triad Abyss. Patton had explained it as dark matter residue released when the Triad was created; however, most of the squad considered it the remains of some sort of primordial experiment the Industrials had conducted. Either way, unprotected entry approximated a long, lingering death for those unsuspecting souls who inadvertently crossed the boundaries into the dead zone.

  The abyss was an electromagnetic chasm that siphoned off the life energy of every living thing it came in contact with. Everything, that is except for the Sodin anomaly. The area of space surrounding Sodin devoured everything in its path, feasting on the vibrations holding matter together. In essence, the abyss was a living thing hidden amidst layers of dark biomass. The temporal convergence expanded the threshold, spreading waves of turbulent distortion beyond the boundaries of the magnetosphere holding back the abyss. The Myatek interchange consumed the boundary, powering the artificial star circumnavigating the planet at a distance of half a million kilometers.

  “Gotcha––” said the young warrior, her voice echoing in the old woman’s head. “We have a runner, Commander.”

  Krydal glared at her young counterpart. Remembered the wind against the shadow of the legion.

  “Corporate?” asked Patton.

  “No … Dogger,” responded the youthful warrior. She was shaken. Distraught. The air rippled like water, reflecting the old woman’s smile. “I’m on it,” she told the commander. “He probably caused it himself.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” said Patton. The commander motioned a hand-signal to the squad with two outstretched fingers. “Stay alert,” squawked over the transmitter. “We may have to alter our travel plans.”

  The old woman’s heart skipped a beat. Indigo was close; she could feel his presence. He was still on her side of the boundary. Krydal glanced back at the apparition; set her eye to the night, adjusting her vision scope. The squad shadowed her movements, short of engaging the intruder, as they took up positions on the far side of the platform. “Indigo,” said the old woman under her breath.

  The young warrior pulled her M41 assault weapon from its holster, expanded the weapon in one swift movement altering its shape. The translucent weapon turned black, reminiscent of her exoskeleton combat armor. Krydal tracked with her quarry across the platform. The intruder had already altered her travel plans. There was no choice but to step outside the dimensional venue and give up her relative position in space-time. Infinite possibilities meant infinite combinations. “Don’t do it,” shouted the old woman, her voice echoing in the wind from the other side of the boundary. “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  The young warrior looked back at the old woman, her words muddled, yet faintly audible as if she was hearing it out of the corner of her subconscious mind like an impression, or better still, a forgotten memory given birth.

  The squad maintained distance, twenty meters or so; there was no way to effectively predict the outcome of any future encounter. Their position in space and time was relative. The best defense was to wait, which allowed them time to witness the outcome of corporate disputes, government influences or even transactions of power and wealth. They followed the same protocols each and every time; otherwise, it was adios amigos. The Industrials ruled with an iron-fist grip on both political and eco-social economic policies instituted under the Alliance charter. If the accord was in jeopardy then temporal assassins like Crimson sustained the legitimacy of corporate claims while pressing the influential arrogance of the Industrials into service on their behalf. At times, the ITOL were the only true defenders of bureaucracy. Their mission bound from the galactic core to the border worlds, only the abyss separated the Industrials from the conquest of the worlds beyond the convergence. Corporate bounty hunters like Indigo had free rein over the land. It was their job to eliminate the competition without destabilizing the infrastructure of the great houses of the Alliance. The legions, however, lived and died in the abyss, masters of an endless cycle of causality and assimilation. Invincible. An army of time traveling warriors as important to the universe as those they protected. They brought with them a sense of duty and pride, a culmination of strength and virtue. The young warrior remembered the self-esteem in the old woman’s eyes.

  Krydal yelled at the corporate liaison numerous times, finally succumbing to the creak of arthritis and old age. What happened before would happen again. There was no way to stop it. She realized tha
t now. Her symbiont’s activities were greatly reduced, almost non-existent. She could see the trespasser’s movement, but not the intruder. Distance and poor eyesight left her vulnerable. The lower levels of the platform remained completely obscured from her vision. Even infrared scanners couldn’t enhance the platform enough to translate night into the iridescent glow of artificial daylight.

  “Clear,” rattled Hudson Warner’s voice over the young warrior’s transmitter. He was on Krydal’s six, protecting the squad from above. The gunship spiraled its engines into hover mode, bringing to bare an arsenal of dreadful weaponry: Everything from smart bombs to tactical nuclear and seismic field charges. There was nothing she could do now to stop her future. The young warrior did a one-eighty and took refuge under a shadowy rock formation, staying well hidden beneath the gargantuan structure. The intruder dropped a level scrambling for cover on the other side of the landing platform; a maneuver that gave him greater mobility. Survival was foremost on his mind. The gunship packed enough firepower to bring down the mineral processors, if not the entire structure. Again, there was movement … a figure in the distance. Krydal signaled the commander on the move. The intruder transmuted the platform, slipping from one riser to another. He stood silent and wraithlike, between the squad and where he needed to be on the periphery. The intruder was within striking distance, just inside the threshold of the alternate dimension between the boundary layers separating the past from the present. The young warrior’s hand went tight in a fist with two outstretched fingers. The old woman scrambled to her hands and knees, a look of terror upon her face. She stumbled, her tattered clothing rain-soaked under the shadowy shape of her combat armor. Her heart pounding, tormented by the endeavor, the corporate liaison was set askew from the situation.

  The old woman mirrored her younger counterpart’s movements, crazed with her memories of what was to come. The Firehawk cycled its variable geometry engines hovering above the rig as the intruder dropped over the side of the derrick like a master gymnast, in a leap of faith. The young assassin followed, scanning the area systematically. She took great pride in positioning herself for the kill. Patton stayed behind her out of the line of sight. He steadied the squad, keeping the team to the lighter side of the platform, but remained within earshot of the young warrior.

  “How appropriate––” she said under her breath. “If it isn’t Indigo, the infamous bounty hunter, extraordinaire.”

  For a moment, the old woman felt the sentimental attachment, the rush of forgotten passion like love lost, dredged through déjà vu. But the sensation dissipated quickly. Krydal Starr exhaled, guarding her face against the intense heat of the Sodin sun. If only she had checked her fear at the door, eliminating the intruder would be less difficult. She could feel his presence; the familiarity of his scent. The mining rig provided the intruder with more than adequate cover. Nevertheless, the scent gave away his position. The smell was just as intoxicating to her mind as it was her body. Her memory tempered with passion; warm with every miniscule molecule of her being. Lust wet on her lips. She was borne to him, but in a love affair gone wrong. She knew he was standing there, less than a hundred meters away; hidden in plain sight, the ghostly image of a man obscured in the downpour of horizontal rain … his heart open to any rendition of her love.

  Crimson awaited him, silent, dredging her way through the blustery wind to stand-alone in the pouring rain, her heart pounding with the rhythm of a hundred queries. If only there was a place to begin again, thought the old woman. A lover’s glance remembered, blending from symbiont to host. Every muscle surged with want of his arms around her––love lost, tampered with until it no longer existed. “Got him commander,” said the young warrior, her voice scratchy with the intolerance of a feud long past.

  Electrical discharges crossed the old woman’s heart, loose soil shifting beneath her feet as the curve of her boot pressed hard into the gravel. The squad flanked her position, hidden by the edge of darkness. There was no escape; every weapon aligned on target, the energy of the universe at their fingertips, pulsating with the power of liquid antimatter fusion.

  “What is it this time?” asked the warrior, sarcastically. “You lose another client?” The intruder flinched; the squad lowered their weapons. Indigo catapulted past her into the night: a phantom in the wind. Krydal Starr scrambled after him, but stopped abruptly confronted with the crazed eyes of the old woman on the other side of the boundary. Her camouflage disengaged. Crimson scrambled along the wreckage of the fallen ground hauler pleading for her younger constituent not to do anything rash, but the corporate liaison couldn’t hear her words. She was face-to-face with an old adversary, lover-to-lover. Enemy-to-enemy.

  The intruder stumbled, made a noise sending goose bumps to rattle Crimson’s nerves. “You always had a way with words,” Indigo told her in a whisper. “Sure you wouldn’t rather have a drink at Rusty’s?” His voice cracked, distorted by the wind. His body uncloaked, an old man suddenly visible. Crimson cocked her head, thoughts of the past slurring with memories of another existence. She stood before him, staring at a man from another place in time. Compromised. Her heart melted, invulnerably detained. She was fluttering with a schoolgirl’s crush, but didn’t remember the incident.

  “Looks to me like you’ve already had a little too much kettle juice,” said the young warrior. The bounty hunter’s body recoiled against the butt of her weapon. “You’re on the wrong side of the boundary, you know?”

  The bounty hunter dropped to a dusty landing on the red carpet of his pride with a thud. “Indigo––” said Patton. The commander glanced over the young warrior’s shoulder staring at the old bounty hunter. “You okay here?”

  “Just a little unfinished business,” she answered. There was a note of satisfaction in her voice. “I’ll be right with you.”

  Patton looked at the two lovebirds with a stone face grin, knowing what was to come. Krydal set her weapon to stun, squeeze the trigger. Indigo collapsed, his body nestled against a bed of stone. Silent. Patton would make accommodations for the infamous bounty hunter; maybe even consider returning him to his side of the boundary. It was his way.

  “Firehawk––” insisted Patton, “Nine for extraction.”

  The old woman broke into tears; her face withered from fear. She watched her beloved vanish, erased from history. His body vaporized into the ethers of another existence, as the universe absorbed him into the nothingness of space and time, as if he never existed. Fifty-eight years passed in an instant, discarded, one lifetime exchanged for another. Not so much as a blade of grass, or a moisture-ridden leaf crossed the boundary between them. Not even the superheated sediment swirling within the windmills of her mind survived the plague of their long forgotten battlefields. Nothing was as it should be; the prospect of foraging a better world was suddenly beyond the scope of her understanding. “This is impossible,” she screamed. She had no choice but to recertify the past. She had to find a way to undo the endless loop of false memories and expose the cover-up of the real event hidden in her mind’s subconscious. The only foreseeable solution was to reset history, begin the blending again, and that was a task she didn’t cherish. If she miscalculated so much as a microbe, both her host and herself would cease to exist. The prospect of failure was unthinkable. The credibility of a second attempt would be futile, and only complicate matters. Her reality would fracture; chaos would prevail. She had to curtail the event, disrupt the flow of time itself. Rupturing the space-time continuum could force the universe back together again in a singularity: A point of conjunction.

  Crimson had no choice but to focus her attention on the event; orchestrate a collision between time and space, in both universes. Reorder all the dimensions of space-time, collapsing the past, present and future. But it would take a lifetime to accomplish. Obviously, she would need a place in time that she knew would remain constant. Indigo was the understandable choice, but dangerous. The event had all the earmarks of a trap. If someone wanted them bot
h dead what better way to accomplish it then erase one, or both of them from history! The prospect of changing the future was bleak, the census less favorable than first thought. If Indigo’s disappearance was anything but an indication of foul play then it was only a matter of time before the individual behind the altercation would strike again. Krydal knew her neck was literally on the chopping block. Nevertheless, it was a chance she would have to take.

  FIVE: Breadcrumbs

  • • •

  The old woman hightailed it back across the battlement, following Indigo’s trail to the edge of the barrier where he transposed dimensions fifty-eight years earlier and ended up on the other side of the temporal convergence. She wondered if he simply stepped out of the future into the past, or if there was something the ITOL missed? Some little scratch in the barrier they overlooked just wide enough for the bounty hunter to get through. The rip had to be secluded, exist throughout time like a bridge between the futures, and small enough not to affect the structural integrity between universes.

  But where was it? she asked herself. Indigo had managed to cross the boundaries time to time again without incident, so setting traps for those individuals he deemed inappropriate to the survival of the Industrials was commonplace. Crimson couldn’t help but wonder if Indigo had purposefully done sent her here, orchestrated the whole event just to get rid of her. After all, she was the competition!